ANNIVEESARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. Xcix 



the currents of the ocean, and thus point out the course which 

 arctic currents would have taken at a period when a larger portion 

 of the I orthern hemisp lere was submerged. The traces of these 

 ancient cu rents are to be fourd in the scratchings and stri« which 

 mark the rocks of Scandinavia and Great Britain, and other parts of 

 Euiope. The^e is no ice near the equator; perpetual ice near the 

 poles, and more in winter than in summer, because of the earth's 

 position ; but it is owing to subterranean movements that ice for- 

 merly extended to lower latitudes in certain portions of the globe. 

 Thus he shows that in consequence of a recent elevation of the fun- 

 damental ^ocks of Europe, and a probable sinking elsewhere, the 

 waters which formerly covered certain parts of the surface have 

 changed their position. The arctic stream, which flowed south and 

 west, was thus diverted from those districts in Western Europe 

 which have been raised above the level of the sea to the western side 

 of the Atlantic ; and with it have been carried those vast masses of 

 ice and snow which formerly scratched and striated with their rocky 

 contents the surface of Scandinavia and North-western Europe, de- 

 positing great boulders on their way, and which now condense, 

 chiefly on Greenland, Labrador, Newfoundland, and North America. 

 Having thus endeavoured to explain the general theory of the 

 author, I will merely state that the first volume is chiefly devoted to 

 an account of the denudation of the earth's surface, the engines by 

 which this has been eff'ected, viz., frost and ice, and the tools which 

 hav-e actually done the wo^k, glaciers, icebergs, and Arctic currents, 

 as represented in Scandinavia, Iceland, Switzerland, and elsewhere. 



The second volume continues the history of the same subject of 

 denudation in the British Islands and America ; and the author then 

 proceeds to consider the question of deposition, the result or counter- 

 part of denudation, inasmuch as the material removed by denuda- 

 tion from one place must be deposited somewhere else. Einally, 

 the question of upheaval is also examined, and its causes and results 

 duly considered ; this, of course, is considered as the eff'ect of the 

 other great agent in modifying the earth's surface, viz., fire or heat. 

 It is illustrated by many observations and experiments, drawn from 

 the furnace and the smelting- works. These results are shown to be 

 identical with the eff'ccts produced by volcanic action, indicating the 

 existence of great central heat, causing disturbance of the earth's 

 surface by earthquakes, and producing upheaval of vast regions by 

 the expansion of subocrranean matter. 



Buu without going further into these dynamic questions, or dis- 

 cu: jing the probable correctness of some of his physical assumptions, 

 I will merely refer to one point, to which Mr. Campbell's attention 

 se ns to have been particularly directed, I mean the striation and 

 grooving of rocks by ice-action. Deeply interested in this question 

 by the similailty of eTidence found in so many countries, and the 

 apparent parallelism of these striae over vast regions of the earth, he 

 has collected, partly by his o\^n personal exertions and partly from 

 the writings of others, a mass of evidence by which he has endea- 

 voured to throw light on the causes of these phenomena. Thus, 



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